Would leaving earlier have helped, or damaged trust sooner?

Political blame should not obscure how the mechanism actually worked. A documentary must distinguish political blame from the economic mechanisms that...

The departure was a dramatic monetary change, but its effects unfolded within a broader international depression. Breaking a monetary rule is only the...

The gold commitment constrained policy responses at a time of severe economic uncertainty. Defending the exchange rate came with painful domestic cons...

What mattered most in the crisis: reckless expansion, lack of liquidity or interdependence among firms?

Modern labels such as too big to fail can obscure how different eighteenth-century legal and banking structures were. Modern catchphrases don't q...

Losses were transmitted through connections among borrowers, merchants and other financial institutions. Connections between firms transmitted the sho...

Funding can feel easy right up to the moment counterparties step away. The bank's operations reflected ambitious lending and funding practices vu...

Which control should have caught the abuse earlier?

Scandal narratives can overfocus on colorful individuals at the expense of rules that made concealment possible. A dramatic villain is less useful tha...

Reforming the institution required rebuilding credibility in public rules. Institutional reform followed a crisis of credibility; the surrounding poli...

The story involved banknote issuance, governance failures and the relation between financiers and political power. The scandal was about political rel...